Director of Berlin Jewish Museum resigns over pro-BDS tweet
Peter Schaefer stands down 'to avert further damage from the Jewish Museum Berlin'
The director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum has resigned a week after the museum tweeted a link to a pro-BDS story.
Peter Schaefer announced in a statement from the museum Friday that he would resign “to avert further damage from the Jewish Museum Berlin.”
Monika Grutters, the chairwoman of the museum’s Foundation Council, said in a statement that she hopes the museum “can concentrate again on its … important work. ”
The resignation comes after backlash to the June 6 tweet in which the museum linked an article about 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars who objected to a German parliamentary resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The museum wrote that the article in the the left-wing publication Taz was a #mustread.
The museum later clarified that it “has in no way positioned itself against the resolution of the Bundestag,” the German parliament. But on June 11, Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, slammed the museum.
The museum had previously hosted Judith Butler, an anti-Zionist professor, as well as Iranian representatives.
“The Jewish Museum Berlin seems to be completely out of control. Under these conditions, one has to wonder whether the term ‘Jewish’ is still appropriate,” Schuster wrote.
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